SmartThings Support

Scenes in the SmartThings Classic app

Scenes in the SmartThings Classic app lets you set the mood in your home by instantly activating customizable lighting actions for multiple lights at once. Use Routines to activate a Scene when the sun rises, when you come home, or at a certain time of day. SmartThings will remember your preferences and instantly turn on your switch, dim your outlet, and change the color of your bulb with a single command.

What you can do with Scenes

Scenes are the best way to control a group of lights to create the perfect mood for any room in your home.

You can group multiple bulbs, switches and outlets in a single Scene. Each individual light will have its own attributes that act independently from one another. For example, you can dim one bulb, change the color of another, and turn off a switch at the same time with a single command.

To illustrate: You could create a Bedtime Scene to turn off your bedroom's ceiling lights, turn your night light on, and set its color temperature to warm white. Or, set up a Reading Scene to turn off your living room lights and turn on your reading lamp. You can also set a Wake Up Scene to change the color of your bedroom bulbs and use a Routine to activate the Scene automatically in the morning.

You can trigger a Scene in the SmartThings Classic app by navigating to the My Home tab and tapping on Scenes. Here, you can activate, edit, or set up a new Scene.

Add a new Scene

In the SmartThings Classic app:

Tap My Home

Under Scenes, tap Add a Scene

Tap on the devices that you will be adding to the scene

Tap Next

Give your Scene a name

To change the Scene's icon, tap on the magic wand icon next to your Scene's name and then tap Done

Under Set up devices, select a device

Tap the gear icon to Add more device settings:

Device State

Brightness

Color

Color Temperature

Tap Done to save each device's settings

Tap Test Scene to run the Scene before saving

Tap Done again to finalize setup

This completes the creation of your new Scene.

Trigger a Scene

There are several ways to trigger a Scene. You can do so through the SmartThings mobile app, through an automation via Routines and Smart Lights, and through Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

To trigger a Scene in the SmartThings Classic app:

Tap on My Home

Tap on Scenes

Tap on the icon of your Scene

Scenes and Routines

Routines can be configured to automatically run at certain times or when certain events occur. To illustrate: You can set up the I'm Back! Routine to run when you come home. When detecting that you've returned home via your mobile device, SmartThings could automatically set your thermostat to the temperature you'd like, unlock your front door, and run a Scene that turns your outside lights on while changing the color of your living room bulbs.

Smart Lights is a SmartApp that is tailored specifically to creating lighting automations. While Routines are great for automating many different smart devices in your home, Smart Lights focuses specifically on outlets, switches, bulbs and plugs, and features triggers that may not be possible in Routines, such as illuminance and the state of a connected door lock. For example, you may want to configure a Smart Lights automation to activate a Scene that turns off your living room lights and turns on your outside lights when you lock your door.

If you've already added Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to SmartThings and granted blanket permissions, you should be ready to start using your Voice Assistant to activate a Scene!

By default, Alexa and Google Assistant receive blanket permissions to access all of your SmartThings devices, Routines, and Scenes. If you edited permissions for Alexa and Google Assistant to remove blanket permissions and limit their access to certain devices, see our guides to adding new devices to Amazon Alexa and adding new devices to Google Assistant to add Scenes to your Voice Assistant.